


Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

by Impossibly_Izzy



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Humor, Idiots in Love, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Making Out, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24204670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impossibly_Izzy/pseuds/Impossibly_Izzy
Summary: ‘This is not a vacation,’ Holt said in his Holtiest voice. ‘This is an important work event.’Jake and Charles looked at each other. This was totally gonna be a vacation.
Relationships: Charles Boyle/Jake Peralta
Comments: 12
Kudos: 120
Collections: thespiceboys





	Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

**Author's Note:**

> My brain is always supplying me with random lines and jokes, and this was an attempt to use some of them up. It's also a lot like all the friends-to-lovers oneshots I wrote when I started writing this ship, and it was pretty fun to get back to.  
> I hope everyone is doing as well as possible given the circumstances - stay safe, lads.

‘This is not a vacation,’ Holt said in his Holtiest voice. ‘This is an important work event.’

Jake and Charles looked at each other. This was _totally_ gonna be a vacation. They were getting sent upstate to stay in what sounded like a pretty schmancy hotel, just so they could collect a perp up there and bring him back the next day.

‘Oh, absolutely,’ Charles said. ‘We’re taking this very seriously.’

‘Totes,’ Jake added, but all he was thinking about was the fact that his backpack was full of enough sour candy to numb his mouth so he wouldn’t taste whatever Charles made him eat.

‘Do not let me down,’ Holt said, looking directly at Jake. It was almost like he didn’t trust him not to goof off. Rude. ‘Don’t try to turn this into one of your… “action movies”.’

‘My cousin Danny directs movies,’ Charles said, for no apparent reason. ‘There was this one about trains I think, I don’t know, I haven’t seen it. It looked too scary.’

‘Well, that’s settled,’ Holt continued. ‘Santiago, can you give us an update on the Donaldson break-in?’

Amy got to her feet too quickly. ‘Absolutely!’

‘Is no-one gonna react to the fact that Charles just said he’s related to Danny Boyle?’ Jake said.

Rosa gave a one-shouldered shrug from where she was sitting with her feet on the desk. ‘I don’t really care.’

‘Oh right, because you only watch chick flicks,’ Jake said.

‘Shut _up_ ,’ she growled. ‘Insult Nancy Myers and I will end you.’

Jake caught Charles’ eye again and grinned. This road trip was gonna be _toit_.

The road trip was… kind of toit. Toitish. Charles talked for half an hour about his mom and how she had a rivalry with another florist, and then Jake had put some music on and Charles had requested a bunch of old pop songs that were going to be stuck in Jake’s head for the next eighteen years, probably. He’d only just got Kokomo out after the last time he and Charles had driven somewhere.

‘ _So_ ,’ Charles said, suggestively raising his eyebrows at the road ahead. ‘Any romantic prospects on the horizon for you?’

‘Nope.’ Jake shoved his hundredth gummy worm into his mouth.

‘Worm me,’ Charles said, and Jake held up a gummy close enough to his mouth that he could bite it. The things Jake did for his friends. ‘Let me set you up with someone,’ Charles said, through a mouthful of half-chewed candy. ‘Seriously, I have great taste in women _and_ men.’

‘I don’t need setting up with anyone,’ Jake said. ‘I just downloaded Tinder and I’ve _already_ been rejected by a whole host of beautiful people. It’s only a matter of time before one of them lets me take them out for hot wings and Jell-O shots.’

‘So my number one suggestion is obviously my cousin Meredith –’

‘Guy or girl?’

‘Girl. Number two is my _other_ cousin Meredith, who _is_ a guy... Number three is my dentist, she has the clearest skin you’ve ever seen. Number four: Amy. Five –’

‘Amy who? Amy Santiago?’

‘Yeah, that one’s a shot in the dark.’

‘Okay, I’ll let you set me up on one date,’ Jake said. ‘Pick one of the Merediths and I’ll buy them wings and Jell-O shots.’

‘Jake! You _cannot_! Nobody in the Boyle family has done shots since the Incident of 2004! And we definitely don’t eat wings.’

‘Was there a wings incident as well?’

Charles looked at him like he was an idiot. ‘ _No_ , we’re all food snobs.’ He sighed, gaze flicking back to the deserted highway. ‘Meredith will love you. How could she not?’

‘Yep. I’m amazing.’ Jake bit the head off a gummy worm.

‘Oh, queue up Take Me Home Tonight!’

The road trip lasted forever, but it was pretty good. Jake found himself singing along to Charles’ songs, and he even got Charles singing to the Beastie Boys.

‘I can’t believe you know all the words,’ he said.

‘It’s because I listen to them with you so much,’ Charles said.

By the time they parked up outside the hotel, all of Jake’s joints felt like they were seizing up.

‘This place looks dope,’ he said, stretching his arms out as he surveyed the building in front of them. It looked like an oversized log cabin.

‘I know!’ Charles was reading a signpost. ‘It’s got a spa! And a pool! Why didn’t Holt tell us there was a pool?’

‘This is not a vacation,’ Jake said in his best Holt voice. ‘Fun is… _illegal_.’

Charles gave him the glowing look he always pulled out when Jake did something hilarious. ‘You’re a comedy genius, Jakey.’

Jake’s chest did the warm jumpy thing it always did when Charles looked at him like that. And he _was_ a comedy genius, but he also had a perfect audience in his best friend.

They went into the reception and gave the lady at the desk their names, after which she spent several minutes clicking around on her computer and biting her lip.

‘Is there a problem?’ Charles said, eventually.

‘Let me just check something with my manager.’

The manager came over and clicked some more things. Jake was starting to feel like they were about to get kicked out of this schmancy hotel and would be spending the night in a grotty motel. ‘It was a twin room you booked, wasn’t it?’ the manager said eventually.

‘Yup.’

‘Unfortunately…’ Here it came. They were getting kicked out. ‘We only have a double room available.’

‘Oh,’ Jake said. ‘Is that it? That’s fine.’ He glanced at Charles, who nodded cheerfully.

‘No problem,’ the receptionist said. ‘Can I take your payment card and ID?’

‘Are you sure you don’t mind sharing a bed with me?’ Jake asked as they carried their bags up the sweeping staircase.

‘Of course I don’t!’ Charles said. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind sleeping with _me_? I remember that terrible stakeout… are those free cookies?’

‘Oh my god.’ They totally were free cookies. That alone was worth sharing a bed with Charles. ‘Also, don’t say _sleeping with me_ like that. Anyway, that stakeout was _eight days_. This is just one night, and we have cookies and a hotel bar. This is gonna be awesome.’

They ditched their stuff in the room, and then went to the bar for a drink which turned into two drinks which turned into dinner. They talked about the case and about the squad and about this year’s Halloween heist, and it was just as easy as the conversation on the drive up. Jake was pretty impressed that Charles could work with him five days a week and still be willing to put up with on so many evenings and weekends without ever seeming to get tired of him.

With nothing else to do they went back to their room, even though it was still pretty early. Jake walked to the window and looked out over the hotel’s grounds.

‘Hey, there’s no-one in the pool,’ he said. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

‘Is it that we should sneak into the pool even though we don’t have swimming stuff?’

‘Yes!’ Jake said. ‘That’s the only time you’ve _ever_ answered that correctly.’

For a hotel that apparently had no twin rooms available, it seemed pretty quiet. Jake entertained all sorts of ideas about the rooms being booked by ghosts, or secret service agents, or maybe just people having affairs. It didn’t matter: the point was that the pool was still deserted when they got there, glowing bright blue in the darkening evening, steam drifting from its surface.

‘This reminds me of all my family vacations in Iowa,’ Charles said, unbuttoning his shirt. ‘Me and my cousins used to go down to the lake at night…’

Jake undid his own shirt and tossed it onto a lounger. ‘Was Meredith there?’

‘Oh yes,’ Charles said. ‘She has a very supple body.’

‘God, you’re the worst,’ Jake said, not meaning it. He stripped off his t-shirt.

‘She’s my third cousin,’ Charles said. ‘Now if I was commenting on guy-Meredith’s body, _that_ would be weird. Because he’s my first cousin, not because he’s a guy.’

‘Wouldn’t want to make this weird,’ Jake joked, but it wasn’t, not really. Even as he left his belt on top of his shirts and undid his jeans, this didn’t feel like a new level of intimacy. After a decade of friendship, that godawful stakeout, triple-spooning with Terry in the woods, Charles’ constant oversharing, weekend trips and cop-cons and evenings spent at each other’s apartments, they had basically crossed every line. Jake didn’t think there were any more levels of intimacy left for them to reach.

So he took off his shoes and socks and then his jeans without giving it a whole lot of thought. He was glad he had worn baggy, nondescript underwear, though, just in case someone else showed up. The patio was still warm from the sun under his bare feet, and when he stepped into the water it was perfectly cool without being too cold.

‘I knew this road trip was gonna be dope,’ he said, splashing down the steps.

Charles joined him in the water. ‘You know, when I used to take road trips with my dad…’ he started, and talked for a solid five minutes. And it wasn’t like Jake would have _asked_ about their weird traditions and weirder snacks, but he was happy to listen to it. He leant against the side of the pool and looked up at the sky, which was filling with more stars than he ever saw in the city.

‘My dad drove me to an Arby’s once,’ he said after a while. ‘That’s a road trip, right? Oh, one time we were meant to go Niagara Falls but he had a fight with his girlfriend and went to stay with his _other_ girlfriend who he was cheating with and he forgot about me.’

‘Sorry,’ Charles said. ‘I didn’t mean to…’

‘It’s fine,’ Jake glanced over at him. ‘I did other stuff. And I have my whole adult life for awesome road trips.’

‘You should tell me if I’m talking too much about something sensitive,’ Charles said, seriously. ‘I just, I start talking and I don’t _think_.’

‘It’s fine,’ Jake said again. ‘Stop looking so worried.’

‘I really want to be a good best friend to you.’

‘Dude,’ Jake said, laughing. ‘You’re always a good friend.

‘I’m just –’ Jake splashed him, and Charles laughed and backed away. ‘Stop! Jake – my _hair_.’

‘Your _hair_?’

‘I spend a lot of time on this!’

Jake splashed him again, just with his fingertips this time. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘I just figured something out! Terry gets so mad when you say you’re hotter than him because he puts so much effort into his body – the only part he doesn’t put work into is his hair because he doesn’t _have_ any, and that’s the thing you put the _most_ work into. He’s jealous of your hair!’

‘Terry is jealous of _all_ of this,’ Charles said, gesturing at everything above the surface of the water. ‘But my hair is very important. My hairdresser is the only thing Eleanor let me keep in the divorce, pretty much.’

‘I have so many questions. Why can’t you share her? Why can’t you just go to a salon?’

‘Because she gossips so much, she’s a _hairdresser_ ,’ Charles said, like it was obvious. ‘And I can’t go to a salon because they wash your hair for you.’

‘What?’ Jake said, and then got it. ‘ _Ohh_.’ He was surprised it had even taken that long, considering how often Charles brought it up.

‘Because it gives me a bo-’ Jake splashed him in in the face before he could finish the sentence. A tingle ran up Jake’s spine, so quickly he thought he might have imagined it.

‘Yeah, I got it!’ he said, too loudly.

‘Gah!’ Charles wiped his face with his hands. The front of his hair was wet, a few tendrils hanging over his forehead. ‘You _asked_ , what did you want me to say?’

Jake opened his mouth to retort, but Charles splashed him and he ended up spluttering through a mouthful of chlorinated water. He retaliated, laughing, and it became an all-out splash fight until Charles said, ‘Wait, stop a sec.’

Jake paused. ‘What?’

‘I thought I heard someone,’ Charles said, and then pushed an entire tidal wave of water at Jake’s face.

‘Not fair!’

‘I _did_ think I heard someone, but I was wrong.’

Basically, it was the exact kind of fun Holt wouldn’t have wanted them to have.

Eventually they figured the pool’s closing time was approaching, and they weren’t _that_ rebellious. Jake’s hair was dripping in his eyes as he climbed out, and he grabbed a towel to dry himself off from the top down.

‘We should do this more often,’ Charles said. ‘Buds trip! Ooh, what would you say about coming to Atlantic City with me and my dad?’

‘Sounds wild,’ Jake said, glancing over automatically. And then he found himself looking, really looking, at Charles without his usual outer layers of shirt and tie and slacks and jacket. He had a towel draped around his shoulders, his hair sticking up all over the place. Jake’s eyes trailed over the soft shapes of his body, the dark hair across his chest and stomach that led down to the waistband of his underwear. There wasn’t much light here, but it was enough to see the way the wet fabric clung to him.

‘We don’t go for the gambling,’ Charles said. ‘We got for this restaurant where you can watch them butchering the animal carcasses before you eat them.’

Jake was brought sharply back into the conversation. ‘Ah, coolcoolcoolcool,’ he said. He wrapped the towel around his waist and gathered up his clothes, trying to look like someone who hadn’t just been staring at their best friend’s almost-naked body. ‘Come on, I wanna go to bed.’

The couple in the next room were having very loud, energetic sex. It was like something out of a movie, complete with over-the-top moans and the rhythmic thumping of the headboard against the adjoining wall.

‘God, we should have stayed at the pool longer,’ Jake groaned.

They were lying side by side in the almost-darkness, but the bed was big enough that Jake could barely feel the warmth of Charles’ body next to him. It wasn’t even the first time they had shared a bed: there had been a detectives’ getaway years ago when they had ended up together. _That_ had been a little weird, with fewer years of friendship behind them and a smaller bed. Jake had woken up with Charles halfway to spooning him (‘My subconscious is very sensual!’), which probably hadn’t helped.

‘ _Oh_ , _yes! Yes!_ ’ the woman in the next room shouted.

‘What is it about hotels that make people bang _so_ loudly?’ Jake said. ‘Or are other people like that all the time? Have I been doing something wrong?’

‘It must be hotels,’ Charles said. ‘I’m sure you’re great at sex.’

Jake wondered if Charles was going to end up spooning him again. He sort of wished he _would_ – nobody had spooned him since Sophia. ‘I mean, do _you_ make people sound like that?’

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘Liar,’ Jake said.

‘I’m not lying! It doesn’t mean you’re bad at it, everyone has a different way of –’

‘I’m not even listening to you,’ Jake said. ‘You get turned on by shampoo.’

‘It’s not the _shampoo_ – getting your hair washed by another person is very intimate! And the scalp is a highly underrated erogenous zone.’

Jake laughed so hard he could hardly breathe. ‘Nobody else is like you,’ he said. ‘Like, your dad’s _kind of_ like you, but you’re just, you’re special. I can’t deal with it.’

‘Oh, _Jakey_.’

‘You’re ridiculous. I can’t even –’

Jake gave up on talking as the sex noises in the next room reached their crescendo. And then, finally, it was quiet.

‘Well,’ Charles said. ‘Goodnight, Jakey.’

‘Night, Charles.’

When Jake woke up, he was a little disappointed to find Charles still firmly on his own side of the bed. Jake grabbed his phone – it was early: his alarm hadn’t gone off yet. He allowed his eyes to drift closed, remembering the night before and feeling pretty smug that they had managed to have a great trip despite what Holt had said.

He was still thinking about how Charles couldn’t go to a regular barbers’ because his hair was too fancy, and couldn’t go to a salon because getting his hair washed turned him on. There was something oddly endearing about it. Maybe it was just the Charlesness of the whole thing.

Jake checked his phone: he had a text from Gina that was entirely made up of emojis, and Taylor Swift still hadn’t unblocked him on twitter. Lame. After a while Charles rolled over to face him. He looked so soft, with his old-fashioned pyjamas and his rumpled hair.

‘Finally,’ Jake said. ‘I’m starving. Gotta get me some of that hotel breakfast.’

‘I have to wash my hair first,’ Charles said. ‘Since you decided to fill it with chlorine.’

‘That’s the risk you take when you go in a pool!’

Charles ignored him, and Jake waited approximately a thousand years for him to get ready. There was something nice about sharing his space so comfortably with someone else, though, lying in bed listening to the sounds of first the shower and then the hair dryer in the next room. It had been a while since Jake had had that with anyone.

Charles came out of the bathroom dressed for work, with his hair smoothed back into shape. Jake took a normal-length shower and got dressed, his clothes only slightly rumpled from his backpack. Downstairs they took advantage of the hotel’s breakfast buffet, and Charles didn’t even comment on Jake’s butter-syrup. And then, the vacation officially over, it was time to go and get their perp.

‘God, can you imagine being a cop here?’ Jake said, as they walked through the tiny, nondescript town.

‘I know,’ Charles said. ‘I bet you can’t get a decent goat curry around here.’

‘That’s true,’ Jake said. ‘Because you can’t get a decent goat curry anywhere.’

‘You’re right,’ Charles said. ‘The standards in New York have really been slipping recently.’

They walked into the town’s only precinct, which was just as small and drab as the rest of the place, and headed over to the reception desk.

‘We’re from the Brooklyn Nine-Nine.’ Jake held up his badge, which was somewhat unnecessary when it was hanging around his neck. ‘We’re here for Anthony Stevenson.’

‘ _Ohh_ ,’ the woman said. ‘Yeah, unfortunately we had a power outage and all our systems went down. We’re working on the arrest paperwork, but you’re not going to be able to take Stevenson until tomorrow.’

‘What?’

‘Sorry,’ she said, looking like she didn’t care that much. And why should she? Stevenson was just a guy who needed shipping back to Brooklyn. She wasn’t the one who had been working to find him for months, only to have him get arrested by someone else.

They walked back outside. It was too sunny, too warm. Jake was sweating inside his leather jacket.

‘God damnit,’ he said, setting off in the direction of nowhere. He couldn’t stand still. ‘What are we meant to do now? Just wait around? I hate waiting around.’

‘I know,’ Charles said.

‘There’s not even anything to do here!’

‘We could go back to the hotel and see if they’ve got a room for tonight?’ Charles said. ‘Or we could find somewhere else.’

‘Ugh. Whatever.’

Charles hurried to keep up, pulling out his phone at the same time. ‘There’s… or there’s… oh!’ He beamed.

‘What?’

‘I’ve got an idea!’ Charles said, beaming even more.

‘Does it involve animal intestines of some kind?’

‘No promises,’ Charles said. ‘Except that I promise you’ll love it.’

Jake kind of just wanted to sulk all afternoon and eat the rest of his candy, but Charles looked so excited. ‘Fine.’

Charles drove, and Jake called Captain Holt and told him about the delay.

‘What an infuriating lack of efficiency,’ Holt said.

‘That’s what _I_ said!’

After that, Jake opened another packet of candy and watched the trees and fields and traffic pass outside. And then he saw a sign for the Canadian border, and then…

‘Are we going to Niagara Falls?’ he said.

‘Yes!’ Charles exclaimed, like he had been waiting for Jake to ask.

Jake grinned. ‘That’s a great idea.’

He spent the rest of the drive on Wikipedia, reading out all the stunts people had done at the waterfalls. His frustration was fading – he felt like he was _actually_ on vacation, rather than using work as an excuse for one.

‘They should make movies out of these,’ Charles said.

‘Thank you,’ Jake said. ‘I mean, for thinking of this.’

‘I can’t believe you’re not bored of me yet,’ Charles said, lightly.

‘That’s what I was thinking about you!’

‘Jakey, I could _never_.’

They had been so far west already that it wasn’t much further to drive, and before long they were pulling into a town that seemed to be entirely made up of chain hotels and restaurants. They went to a cheap hotel – no fancy log cabins here – and Jake got them a room. It was only as they took the elevator up that he realised he hadn’t specified twin beds. Heck, he could have got them a room each. He hadn’t even thought about it.

But he forgot about that as soon as they reached the room. It was pretty standard, with a beige carpet and smooth white sheets on the bed, but the far wall was one massive window, looking down on…

‘Holy _shit_ ,’ Jake said.

They walked to the window together. Six stories below them was a road, and beyond that a sidewalk and buildings and people swarming around. And beyond _that_ was the river, a rich blue-green in the morning sun, turning to a bright white as it rushed over the falls. Jake had seen photos, obviously, but there was something surreal and kind of amazing about looking out over it in real life. Photos just couldn’t capture the vastness of it.

‘That is _so_ cool,’ Charles said.

‘This is awesome.’ Jake couldn’t help laughing. ‘I’ve gotta send a picture to Amy, she’s gonna be so jealous.’

They walked down to the street and looked at the waterfalls up close. Everything was built up, clogged with tourists and gift shops, but there was still something pretty awe-inspiring about it. Jake just stood there, letting the breeze and the fine spray of water from the falls blow over him as he took it in.

‘What do we do now?’ he said, at last.

‘Food?’ Charles said.

‘Definitely food.’

‘You know where I wanna go?’ Jake said, as they were getting ready for bed that evening. ‘LA. I wanna go to Nakatomi Plaza!’

‘Ooh, and all those movie studio tours,’ Charles said. ‘I haven’t been on a proper vacation in _years_.’

‘Me neither.’ Jake loved work so much he sometimes forgot how much fun it could be to do something else.

Jake glanced over at Charles, caught a flash of skin, and looked away again. He chucked his clothes into a general pile on top of his backpack and pulled on an old NYPD t-shirt, and then distracted himself by untucking the rigid sheets from the bed.

Jake joined him, reaching out to turn the light off. Only then did he turn to face Charles properly, like suddenly he couldn’t handle him straight on. In this bed, they couldn’t help but be close.

‘I kind of don’t want to go back tomorrow,’ Jake said. ‘I wish we could keep going. We could go to Canada!’

Charles’s hand brushed against Jake’s, and Jake curled his fingers around it. He waited for Charles to pull away.

‘Another time,’ Charles said. His hand shifted, but only to turn a little more into Jake’s grip.

‘I… thank you. For this. It’s been dope.’

‘It’s nothing. We had an afternoon to kill.’

Which wasn’t it at _all_ : Charles saw that Jake was unhappy and took him somewhere he had been meaning to go for decades. And for the first time Jake was glad his dad hadn’t made the trip: there was nobody else he would rather have come here with.

It was like going over the falls in a barrel. One moment he was racing towards the edge, and then, suddenly, he was falling hard and fast.

‘Jake,’ Charles said, his breath hot on Jake’s face.

Jake let go of Charles’ hand, found his shoulder and then the back of his head, and this was it, he had hit the water below. There was distance between them, and suddenly there wasn’t.

Apparently there _were_ more levels of intimacy open to them. Jake felt kind of stupid for not thinking of them sooner. There was kissing, for a start. There was the slide of Charles’ tongue against his own. There was Charles’ hand on his waist, inching around to the small of his back.

Jake pulled away. ‘Charles,’ he gasped. ‘Is this – do you want? Are we –?’

‘Yes,’ Charles kissed him again. ‘If you want to. God yes, Jakey.’

‘No, that’s not what I meant,’ Jake said, quickly. It would be so easy to sink into the kisses again, to lose himself in it, and – _fuck_ – Charles wanted that too. But Jake had to ask first, had to be sure. ‘Is this, like. A one-time thang, or what? Like is it just sexy timez, or…?’

‘Oh. I thought this was – but if that’s what you want, then obviously –’

‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ Jake admitted. ‘But I think it was happening for a long time and I only just caught up.’

Charles lifted Jake’s hand to his mouth and kissed his knuckles, which was super sweet, and then he put one of Jake’s fingers in his mouth, which, _fuck_.

‘That’s –’ Jake’s voice came out hoarse. He could barely string words together. ‘I obviously want you to keep doing that. But I wanna make sure we’re on the same page.’

Charles released Jake’s finger with a wet _pop_. ‘We’re on the same page,’ he said.

‘Noice,’ Jake said, like an idiot.

‘Toit,’ Charles said.

‘Okay, okay, but what I mean is, I think I liked you for a long time but I didn’t know, and I’m sorry if you felt anything and you thought I didn’t, you know, reciprocate, and I don’t know where this is going but I can’t think about anything else, and this whole trip has been –’

‘For god’s sake,’ Charles said. ‘Stop _talking_.’

Jake gaped at him. ‘You never want me to stop talking! And, and, I listened to all that stuff about your mom! And your dad! And about your hair!’

Charles laughed and brought a hand up to cup Jake’s jaw. ‘I adore you,’ he said, and kissed him.

Jake didn’t try to say anything else, he was too busy getting wrapped up in making out. He had an idea and pushed both hands into Charles’ hair, stroking it, rubbing fingertips into his scalp, and Charles _groaned_ and pulled Jake’s body tight against his. _That_ was definitely a new level of intimacy, and Jake couldn’t get enough of it.

‘I think the people next door definitely heard us,’ Jake said, sometime later.

‘Told you,’ Charles said. ‘We’re amazing at sex.’

Jake kissed him. ‘This doesn’t mean I’m going to that animal carcass restaurant with your dad.’

‘All restaurants are animal carcass restaurants! Well, except vegan ones, and why would you want to go to one of those?’

Jake laughed and buried his face in the crook of Charles’ neck, thinking that maybe he was wrong, maybe he would go wherever Charles wanted to take him.

The next day they picked up Anthony Stevenson on the way back to New York. They were both struggling to look like people who had got an acceptable amount of sleep, but it was worth it. As they approached the city, Charles started laughing for no apparent reason.

‘What?’ Jake said.

‘I can’t believe I was going to set you up with Meredith!’

Jake laughed as well. ‘You had a whole list!’

‘I know, I know.’

‘Who’s Meredith?’ Stevenson said from the backseat.

‘None of your business,’ Jake said, cheerfully. He was doing everything cheerfully. ‘I _will_ let you introduce me to your cousins though,’ he added. ‘But I’m definitely not gonna remember their names.’

Charles spent the next twenty minutes talking about his cousins, and Jake drove and listened and couldn’t stop grinning.

‘My cousin Frankie’s a comedian,’ Charles said. ‘But he’s not very good at it.’

‘How are you related to so many famous people?’ Jake said.

‘I have a lot of cousins! We’re very good at keeping in touch.’

There was a moment of silence, and then Jake said, ‘So, hot wings and Jell-O shots tonight?’

‘One or the other,’ Charles said.

‘Deal.’

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm @impossiblyizzy on tumblr if you wanna come say hi :)


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